A Light in the Dark
by dracomalfyaoi
Summary: Bucky Barnes is a war veteran struggling with severe PTSD. Steve Rogers is his scrawny artist boyfriend, and somehow they're happy despite the bad lot that life keeps handing them. They're doing ok, until Bucky suddenly vanishes one day without a trace. When they find him, it's two years later and he's missing an arm and all his memories.
1. Chapter 1

James Buchanan Barnes was a strong man. He knew war- the war of bloody baby teeth from fights in the schoolyard, the war of listening to his best friend's breath rattling every winter, the war of praying for that sound until spring. He knew the war of kissing and dancing with girls who deserved someone who wasn't thinking of someone else, the war of looking at his best friend with his heart in his throat and keeping his mouth closed because love and war were the same and his words could be a rescue or a bomb. He learned about the war of loving someone too scrappy for their own damn good, the war where holding hands was more offensive than shooting a choice finger, the war of ignoring war and loving instead. Bucky's entire life had been war, and it had left him with a boyfriend he adored more than anything. He'd been a soldier since he was seven years old, so it made perfect sense when he turned eighteen for him to make it official.

James Barnes was too good a soldier. He didn't fight for victory, but for peace- victory meant bombing every town and shooting every person not wearing the same colors as yourself. Peace meant almost getting a dishnorable discharge after kicking the ass of your superior because he tried harassing a female recruit. Peace meant sharing food with the tiny pup that kept following the team around, and peace meant going back to a smoldering town because Bucky heard someone still screaming for help. Peace resulted in James Barnes being declared POW after walking into a trap centered around helping a civilian.

There was a soldier missing from that war. The war went on months longer than anyone expected. James Barnes was considered dead, until someone finally shot the right guy in the head and the prisoners got to go home. There was no more fight for James Barnes to return to, not here at least. So he was sent back home, fighting a battle that existed only in his head but existed over and over again.

At least home had pizza.

At least home had Steve.

At least the dog came home with him.

But Bucky wasn't the same when he came home. He was meant to be a dead man, and he suspected that a touch of death had stayed with him even after the statement was retracted. He dreamt of blood and fire sometimes. His brain could blank out for minutes or sometimes even hours at a time. And some things Bucky was ready to patent as new scientific advances, because they could send him miles and months away in just a few seconds.

Winter, he and Steve learned quickly, was the worst. He'd been doing okay, adjusting back to life at home and getting back on his feet. He'd been free for around six months, gotten a lowkey job at a small packaging and shipping place. Wellie- (Bucky had named the dog after H.G. Wells, using input from the English guy on his team to give her a 'girl version' of the name) had been great at keeping him active and offering company when people were too much, but when the cold weather set in his progress seemed to hit the rewind button. The nightmares got worse and more frequent. The snow and the wind and the biting cold all sent Bucky back to the months spent in Russia, and his periods of blankness or his body running on autopilot became almost more common than not. It was just the season, he'd assured Steve. Once the damn temperatures rose, he'd be fine.

But Bucky was gone before spring came.

He didn't leave a note, or a trace of why he left. He didn't even bring anything, not even his wallet or phone or keys. Just the clothes he must have been wearing. It was as if a timer had been set on how much borrowed time Bucky had after escaping death, and before Christmas came it ran out.

Steven Grant Rogers spent most of his life fighting battles that were meant to be bigger than him, that was just the sort of thing that happened when you were born short and scrawny and with enough ailments to fill up more than half of the check boxes on any given sheet of insurance information. Steve was born a fighter, Bucky had just joined his one man battle against the world a little later, made things a little easier- bruises and cuts always seemed to sting a little bit less when he got them with Bucky at his side.

The step from best friend to boyfriend came about as natural to them as stranger to best friend had; it was just that simple, even if they spent far too long mutually pining over one another while convinced that the other couldn't have feelings. Steve and Bucky were just an inevitability, a sure thing, something they'd both take until the end of the line no matter how far that really was. Steve spent a lot of time thinking about things like that while Bucky was overseas, about how any day he could get a formally addressed letter that told him James Buchanan Barnes had been killed in action. His art at the time had reflected that; pieces about longing, about fear, and those were just the ones that gained some attention.

And then the letter came and the words Missing In Action seemed to plaster themselves over every inch of his being. He stopped painting, for months he couldn't even look at his easel. The day they told him that sergeant Barnes was presumed dead was the day he ripped almost every page out of his sketchbook. The pieces littered their apartment for weeks, every time he convinced himself he had gotten them all he found another hidden behind a chair or under a desk. Not his proudest moment.

But then Bucky wasn't dead, then he was home, then he was safe and for a while all Steve wanted to do was draw him. He relearned the shapes of Bucky's face, the way shadows fell differently across his cheekbones, and how his eyes would unfocus when his he remembered something long ago and far away. His art turned angry after that- never at Bucky, it'd always been him and Bucky against everything, but at the politicians and the war profiteers and those who felt national pride and imperialism were one and the same. That art got a /lot/ of attention, everybody loved to hate a political statement after all. This was the stuff that really threw him fully into the light, and it made sense, Rogers had spent his life fighting battles, now he'd just figured out how to do it with a paintbrush instead of a scrawny little fist.

Steve may have loved the recognition, but he loved Bucky more. Bucky who spoke in nightmares and lived with a little more of a shadow in him than he'd had before he shipped out. It was as if the air in the room weighed down heavier on him than it did anyone else, and maybe Steve wasn't an expert by any means but he'd survived enough asthma attacks to know how much a single breath could weigh. So he did everything he could, he was a shoulder when Bucky needed that, made himself scarce when Wellie was all the interaction he could handle that day. Bucky Barnes was still his best friend and nothing would ever change that fact.

When winter came, the holiday that used to fill him with so much joy was suddenly an insurmountable challenge to be fought every single day. The cold weather had never been good for his health but this was something on a different scale entirely. Bucky hated the snow and the cold and it was all Steve could do to chase away one set of nightmares before another was taking its place. Bucky promised that it was just the weather, that this would melt with the chill and that it was all temporary.

And then one cold day in December James Buchanan Barnes walked out of Steve's life and he didn't come back.

Steve plastered every street pole and window with Bucky's picture. He called friends, neighbors, and strangers and asked them to keep their eyes out, to let him come home safe. He got desperate, went to church for the first time since his mother died and prayed and prayed and prayed for him to come home, then for him to be safe, and finally just for him to be alive somewhere. He walked to the police station a thousand times, he handed out flyers to anyone that would take them, he drank too much coffee and visited dangerous neighborhoods and he stopped caring because Bucky was /out there/ somewhere.

The trouble with pushing that hard was that something was bound to break eventually, and Steve might have kept pushing through that too if that break hadn't come in the form of a meningitis induced seizure.

Everything had passed in a blur for a while after that. They fitted him with brand new hearing aids to improve what the sickness had taken, told him that he was lucky he hadn't gone completely deaf, and told him to go home and get some rest. That was when Sam stepped in- Officer Wilson had been the man in charge of Bucky's missing persons case, safe to say they'd seen a lot of each other in the past few months. Sam was the first to visit him in the hospital, first to tell him that getting himself killed looking for Bucky wasn't going to be good for anyone, first one to tell him six months later that he didn't have to hate himself for putting Bucky's things into boxes and hiding them in the back of the closet where he didn't have to spend every day looking at them anymore.

Steve started painting again after that. He had to buy a new easel but he still started painting again. He went out with Sam, he made new friends, and the pretend smiles he plastered on became more and more convincing until they were all but second nature. He adjusted, and Sam had been there to see the best and worst parts of that change. He'd never been afraid to tell that to Steve, either.  
-

Over two years later, the pain had eased. Steve missed Bucky almost every day instead of every day, and the pain was no longer overwhelming. He could swallow the sudden lumps in his throat and continue shopping or laughing at a joke, and with another mouthful of water or alcohol the pain could be ignored again. Wellie stopped waiting at the door and crying when it was time to go to sleep and Bucky still wasn't home. Sam no longer had to look inside his case file and wonder how someone could leave his best friend, especially if Bucky was as great as Steve said. The hole wasn't gone, not by any means. Steve still couldn't play tug of war with Wellie and win like Bucky could, he couldn't take her on such long walks. He couldn't look too long at a man in a military uniform, or go to Coney Island. He couldn't date. He could smile and laugh again, he could say that as a person he no longer felt like he was drowning every day and was probably reasonably close to being happy, but the hole that Bucky Barnes had left in his life was never really going to disappear.  
-

The homeless man wedged behind a dumpster in an alley on forty-second street with less than two year's worth of memories in him didn't know anything about that. Nobody wanted him, he knew that as well as he knew the cold was awful, losing an arm hurt like a bitch and that he'd been strapped down and electrocuted before and would rather die out in the cold than risk having it happen again.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam Wilson had had just about fucking enough of this.

Of course it was his turn to handle the call in about some fistfight outside a restaurant that just happened to take place at 2 am. Sam actually thought for a moment that it sounded like a kind of fight that Steve might get himself into, but this time it apparently wasn't his fault, just some one armed homeless man that was more than likely hanging out behind the dumpsters looking for a quick meal and a some kind of shelter from the worst of the cold and had started a fight after a bit too much to drink. Sam would tell him to move along, maybe give the guy some information on shelters nearby if he didn't look too drunk or stoned, and then call it a night.

It was snowing pretty heavily as he carefully steered the cruiser down the street and parked it down on the corner. He'd always loved the sound of snow crunching under his feet; it was peaceful and quiet, and the exact opposite of the dust of Afghanistan. He liked turning around and seeing the tracks, knowing you could make your mark on the world but also count that it would either melt away or be covered up by more of the pure white. That was one nice thing about being called out at two in the morning; New York never truly slept, but it quieted down enough this late for the snow to still have that pure-white sparkling quality.

Sam wasn't thinking about that as he trudged down towards the alley behind the Italian restaurant. He was thinking that it was cold as all hell, cold enough that it was dangerous even for New York City's most seasoned bums. Coldest night they'd had in years, was what was being passed around the office. New York was always cold as shit, but even Sam had noticed this windy snap and made sure to glance Steve over and check for extra layers every time they hung out over the past few weeks. He didn't hover, per se, but Steve wasn't exactly the best at making sure he was always in tip top shape. At first Sam had thought it was just a side effect of his grief, but as their friendship grew and Steve's pining subsided, Sam began to realize that Steve really did just forget or refuse to acknowledge that his skinny body needed a little extra TLC. Steve had offhandedly mentioned once that Bucky used to be the one who remembered to sew up holes and double up socks. Sam had stopped grilling him after that, but he did adopt what he assumed to be Steve's ex's habit and start checking to see that Steve was warm enough after the advanced meningitis that nearly took his life.

Shaking himself from his thoughts, Sam glanced down at his tracks in the snow- in front it was pure white, but behind him he could see the print of his boot. Most were still white, or had a touch of gray, but the last one had a smudge of red.

He scuffed his shoe across the street in a wide arc and confirmed his hunch- more red appeared in thin streaks, not yet frozen blood revealed as Sam swiped away the most recent dusting of snow. It didn't look like a lot, but it meant that some sort of weapon had been involved in the fight instead of just a couple of drunks hitting each other in a competition for the best dumpster to sleep behind. Sam rested his hand on his taser- he hated even pulling out the gun, the taser did all the 'stopping the bad guy in his tracks' with much less of the 'death or lifelong trauma and injury'.

Nobody could say police work didn't keep you on your toes.

Scuffing along the snowy street more showed that the blood actually seemed to lead to the alleyway across from the one he'd been directed to. That was a bit odd- if the guy figured out that he needed to clear the area, he would probably be smart enough to know that twelve feet wasn't exactly far enough away. Was he injured? No, probably just too inebriated to make it far. Sam hoped that was it, as it was definitely the simplest solution to this. If the guy really was drunk, Sam could charge for public intoxication and take him to the station so he'd have somewhere safe and dry to stay the night. A lot of these guys wouldn't go to the shelters- some wouldn't take them for reasons that made Sam's blood boil, some were full, some demanded certain information that the guys on the street didn't want to give up. Sometimes the guys just couldn't handle being somewhere safe and warm, it was too different from the constant terror that played on the backs of their eyelids. Sam could sympathize with that. He kept flyers for all sorts of therapy groups in his glovebox, and he liked to think that some of the people he'd talked to had actually gone to them.

None of the tragic or uncommon scenarios that had been passing through Sam's head for the past minute or so could have prepared him for what he saw when he ventured into the alleyway that night. Shining his flashlight down the narrow space immediately revealed a decently large person hunched over on the ground, back rested against the dumpster. That by itself was a sign that this man wasn't in his right mind- normally bums would wedge themselves between the dumpster and the wall, or under the dumpsters, to preserve heat. Walking closer, he realized that the man didn't even have any newspapers covering him. He was either new to the streets (highly unlikely, judging from the general grunginess of his demeanor), drunk past the point of coherency, or pretty messed up in some other way. Sam would shake him awake, send him on his way with some self help pamphlets and some cash or take him back to sleep away the drugs or alcohol at the precinct, and then be on his way.

That had been the plan at least, right up until he took another few steps into that dirty back alley behind the restaurant and came face to face with a ghost. Like an actual, honest to God ghost; that was what you called the guy whose face you'd seen a thousand times over with the word 'missing' printed under it, right? The guy printed out on paper and clutched by the most determined man Sam had ever met in his life, the guy plastered on every surface of New York until Steve couldn't afford any more ink, the guy who had somehow gotten the man devoted to justice and equality even at the expense of his own well-being to somehow deem him good enough in this dirty world to fall hopelessly in love with him. James Barnes, whose case had stayed open longer than any in anyone at the office's memory simply because Steve showed up every damn day and wouldn't leave until he was sure something was being he'd first gotten the case he'd hoped it was just an unloyal boyfriend eloping with his new favorite, but when not a cent had been taken from his account, his passport was still locked up in a safe, and even his /wallet/ had been left behind the next obvious choice was foul play. Barnes was a big guy, but no one could track him even one foot outside his apartment, it was like he'd just blinked off the face of the earth one day. It didn't take long for the case to go cold and end up pushed into some back filing room but without a body that was all it could be, another missing persons where the person stayed just that. But he wasn't anymore, James Barnes was alive and hiding behind a dumpster outside some shitty Italian place. Sam had accepted that a man who suddenly disappeared without any information and left all his personal belongings behind either didn't want to be found, or wasn't going to be found in any condition that was worth bringing him home in. When his bank account had been untouched for weeks, Sam had had to assume the worst. He didn't think Steve ever accepted that Bucky was most likely dead, but after about six months he did resign that he was gone. Sam had helped him pack up Bucky's things, helped him get back out in the world without bringing a new stack of 'missing' posters with him. If you had asked him about any other case, any other person, Sam Wilson may have at best been able to offer a 'they might look familiar, I'd have to go over the files again'. But he knew this case like the back of his hand- the only thing he knew better than Bucky's face, even after two years and a missing left arm, even with long hair and a beard, was the pain that its absence had caused his best friend.

Sam had been frozen as all of this went through his head, his eyes glued to the ghost on the ground in front of him.

"Bucky? Bucky Barnes?" He asked, moving slowly towards the man. "Jesus, what happened to you man?" Steve was going to... He was going to do something, that was for sure.

Jesus, this was- this was absolutely not the type of thing he'd been prepared to deal with tonight. What was the protocol for this? Was there even any? Two years missing and suddenly he's found hanging out behind dumpsters and punching people on Sam Wilson's patrol route. Sam raised a hand, clicking his radio on to speak while watching Bucky the whole time.

"I'm uh- gonna need an ambulance at 4th and Jefferson, we've got a 10-57 here." He said, waiting for the confirmation before kneeling down to Bucky's level.

"My name is officer Sam Wilson, I'm a friend of Steve's. You're safe now." He explained, voice careful but calm, the way a therapist might sound. "You've been through a lot, James, but I'm going to get you some help. There's an ambulance coming to check you over and make sure you're not hurt, we'll take you down to the hospital and get you looked at and then we're going to get you home." Bucky was probably scared, he had opened his eyes and was staring at Sam without even a flicker of recognition for Steve's name. Maybe he was in shock, or concussed. One of those had to be the reason he wasn't reacting. The ghost was alive, if he loved Steve a tenth as much as Steve had loved him then he'd be reacting a hell of a lot more than this right now. There was still the question of what the /fuck/ he was doing here and why he'd never thought to maybe just go home or at least pick up a goddamn payphone and let Steve know he was still alive, but those were all things that could be answered later.

Right, later. Later when he had to call Steve and tell him something, because he'd spent the last two years accepting the fact that his best friend and the person he loved was never coming back and now he was right here. God, what was that conversation going to be like? What would Steve do? What would he say? What could anyone say at a time like this? It wasn't like they made a 'Dummy's Guide To Discovering Your Dead Boyfriend Isn't Dead'. That was a future worry though, right now his main goal was making sure that Barnes was okay enough to make it to the hospital. He wasn't about to let this guy die on him now that they'd finally found him.

"Are you hurt? Can you walk?" He asked, standing up again and slowly offering his hand to help Bucky up off the ground. Ready to take the ghost back home, to the family waiting for him.  
-

He hated winter.

He didn't know if he'd always hated winter, if there was a specific reason. Currently, he hated the cold and the way it made the stump of his left arm ache like all hell. He hated the sudden vanishing of good will (everyone was willing to help out during December and even New Year's, but around February self-improvement wasn't an issue any more and he was a scary homeless man sitting in the shadows). At least in summer there was shade. It was hot as all hell and awful, but there was a specific kind of misery that came with the ice and snow. Maybe whoever he used to be knew what it was.

Whoever he'd been, wasn't worth identifying. Most people would have gone to a hospital when they lost an arm and all of their memories. And he had planned on it, honestly. Except outside the hospital, he'd seen some woman on a gurney and just... lost it. He could remember his heart pounding and puking in the alley beside the building, and then he was waking up behind some library with his arm at least patched up enough to survive. He'd wondered if he'd been a doctor, or a soldier. Probably the latter, because what else would've fucked him up that bad? His next two attempts to get medical assistance after losing the arm or even to get himself identified went even worse than the initial one, and he'd given up. He'd probably been on the streets for years, some traumatized dude who couldn't make it in the real world. He was pretty sure he'd been a soldier. He knew how to fight and how to be hungry, knew how to sew up an arm enough to not die. That's about all he could do now- not die. He couldn't get help. He couldn't get a job (the one interviewer who would talk to him after seeing his depressing lack of information had insisted that identification was needed, and that he needed to go to a hospital if he couldn't remember- he'd punched the guy and ran away). All he could do was sit here in the dark as shit alley that smelled like food from the dumpster and watch the snowflakes falling onto the already pure-white ground. He was feeling dizzy with hunger and cold. It was dangerous as all hell to be out here in this weather, but when he'd tried to go to a shelter they'd tried to get him to a hospital and he ran. He'd survived last year, with major blood loss. He was skinnier now, and sick, and it definitely was the coldest night he'd noticed on the streets. Still, he'd survived February last year, he would do it again. He rested his head against the icy bricks and let his eyes drift shut. It felt cold enough to die, but he'd been out here long enough to know that you could stand a lot more pain than you thought you could and still survive. It felt icy even wedged between the dumpster and the wall and covered in old newspapers, but he was probably just feeling it more than usual because he was sick. He'd slept through bone-chilling nights before and still woken up the next morning. Life just wasn't kind enough to hand death over that easily.

"No...no, please stop."

He raised his head at the trembling voice from the opposite alleyway, disgruntled resignation already settling in. It was definitely a girl's voice, and she didn't sound like an adult. He really, really didn't want to stand up right now, but he didn't think he was the kind of person to not do anything when others needed help. It seemed really important that he helped. Maybe that was the supposed soldier in him.

"Stop it, I'll scream- HELP!"

He was on his feet faster than he'd expected, sprinting towards the girl's scream. The snow made his feet skid as he rounded the corner, but he held his footing enough to scramble into the alleyway towards the two scrawny kids. The girl looked like she was in high school, and he didn't bother checking out the guy. All he had to do was dodge a punch, then land his own before each kid was running in a different direction. Fine, the girl was safe and the guy actually looked like he was barely on his feet. As long as the chick was safe, he didn't care. He could probably cross 'cop' off the list of possible jobs he used to have. A cop would've cared about victory, about finding out what the hell the two kids were doing out so late. He just cared that the punks had gotten out of here and he had his peace back.

He'd only taken about two steps out of the alley before he felt the sharp pain in his side and looked down to see the glint of metal.

"Fucking Christ." He muttered, yanking the blade out with a grunt at the pain. It was just a small pocketknife, too short and not enough blood on it for any life threatening damage to have been done. Not like he could go to a hospital if it had, anyways. He was pretty sure he'd feel it if something important had gotten poked, but all he really felt was tired and numb. He pocketed the knife, sure it would come in handy, but when he took a step to head back to his dumpster he let out a soft groan of pain. He was suddenly feeling the wound now that he'd shifted his weight, and while he stood by his decision that it wasn't life threatening it was pretty deep for a punkass kid with a walmart pocket knife. The bastard had dragged it too, making it wider than it had to be. Just what he needed.

He was confident the snow would cover the sparse blood trail that lead back to his alley before anyone came along. All he could do for now was collapse beside the dumpster and close his eyes, hoping that the tantalizing smell of food would at least trick him into feeling full while he slept.

It was working pretty well, until the dull whoosh of a car driving down the otherwise silent street woke him. He recognized the logo without having to read any of the writing on the side of the car- this wasn't the first time someone had called the cops on him, and it wouldn't be the last. Cops didn't like homeless people, so in return homeless people didn't like cops. All they ever did was shoo you, away from the one goddamn place you'd found that was semi comfortable and sheltered. They'd tell you where the shelters were, as if you were so fucking stupid you didn't know, and they never considered that maybe you didn't want to go to a shelter. They didn't arrest you too often, at least. Unless you were causing a major public disturbance, they'd let you be on your way. He appreciated that, at least. They'd kick you out into the cold, but as long as you didn't cause too much trouble they wouldn't take you anywhere you didn't want to go.

He was almost certain he hadn't caused that much trouble. He hadn't even started it, he'd helped! He was a goddamn hero, the disabled helper that all these New Yorkers loved to jack off to- some half-starved amputee, some barely human thing had saved that poor kid. He better be getting a goddamn badge off that cop and nothing else.

As he listened to the footsteps drawing closer, he prayed to nothing that the snow had actually covered the blood, because if it was discovered he was bleeding the cop might get concerned. He glanced down, noticing a few red patches around himself. He scuffed them away with his boot, but for good measure he pulled out the pocket knife and squeezed it to slash his palm before shoving the blade back in his pocket. A cut on the hand was nothing to worry about, he could blame it for the blood and cover the stab wound. He'd have to somehow get new clothes after this, people got freaked out when you had too much blood on you.

It was only when the cop rounded the corner that he thought to get scared. He was sick, had been for about half a week. He didn't know what, just knew he was coughing a lot and couldn't pull in enough air, and he felt weaker than normal. Wasn't sure if he was running temperatures. Plus he was half starved and now stabbed. He'd taken out the kid fine, but even a good fighter like himself couldn't take on a cop in this condition. Plus, he didn't feel like he could walk very far. There weren't many places to go any more- business owners had gotten real smart about their rights to shoo away trespassers, even when they were just huddling behind the goddamn dumpster at 2 am to try and keep warm. If he was told to move along and couldn't, the cop might try and take him somewhere. Either to jail for being a public nuisance, or to the hospital for- he didn't care what. Hospitals were bad, he didn't go to hospitals. Hospitals would hurt him, they would strap him down and coo lies in his ear and nobody would help him-

He couldn't zone out right now, the way he often did when he started thinking about hospitals and the half-formed memories of pain and horror and restraints. He couldn't just wander away from this one, he needed all his wits about him. He couldn't physically fight the cop if he had to, he'd have to find a new escape plan. He did know that he couldn't let the cop know he was scared. You never showed that you were scared.

He had an odd feeling he'd learned that somewhere other than the streets.

Maybe the cop wouldn't see him. Dammit, he should've thought to slide under the dumpster. It was a testament to how out of it he was that he hadn't. Damn. He clenched his fist to control its trembling, glaring icily from between the greasy strands of hair that fell into his face.

"Bucky?"

Not what he was expecting to hear.

"Bucky Barnes? Jesus, what happened to you man?"

The cop was moving closer. He shifted back, staying in his crouched position and feeling like a cornered wild animal. His heart was pounding- he didn't like strangers, meaning he didn't like people at all- but he kept his glare fierce.

Don't show fear.

He didn't know this man. He didn't know this man, and this man didn't know him because he'd been out here for over two years and somebody would have recognized him before he grew a beard and long hair and started looking like the garbage he slept beside. The cop must be mistaken. He knew he looked like an entirely different person from when he first found himself wandering the street, so the cop must recognize this shell and not the person he used to be. This wasn't the first time someone had given him a name. Other homeless people had tried out different ones on him, and he let them until he moved on, and then he forgot the name and let someone else call him whatever they pleased. He didn't have a name.

He needed to communicate that thought to the cop, who was still moving closer and he could feel the dumpster at the back of his heel, and there was nowhere to run even assuming he could stand up again. He didn't have a name. He was a ghost and nobody knew him or cared about him, and he wouldn't have some jackass cop trying to tell him any different.

"Who the hell is Bucky?"

He didn't trust this guy one bit. He didn't care what the guy's name was, he had no fucking clue who Steve was supposed to be. Who named their kid Steve nowadays anyway? When Sam tried to get down on his level, he shifted even further back, his back pressing against the icy metal of the dumpster behind him. Way to make him feel like a cornered animal. But no way in hell was he going to get in an ambulance. He would never go back to a hospital, back to the place where they gave him so many names not one of them meant anything any more (Soldat, собака, now James, Bucky, countless more) and hurt him and never let him leave. He could feel the acute pain in his sternum that meant he was going to start hyperventilating and losing focus soon, but he couldn't do that now because he was a cornered animal and couldn't lose focus or he was done for.

"I'm not going to a hospital. I'm fine." His voice was scratchy and weak enough to immediately betray otherwise. He could feel the fear leaking into his eyes and his facial expressions, so he tried his best to make it look scary, like the fear of a wildcat or a bear and not the fear of a grown man who just wanted to run and run and run and never come back.

"You can't make me go. I don't hafta do anything I don't want to, I have rights." Was that true? Everyone had at least some rights. Wasn't there a thing where people could refuse healthcare, even in life threatening situations? Autonomy or something.

"You got the wrong guy." Shit, his speech was getting faster, trying to match the rate of his speeding heart. He held his one arm, palm still bloody, out in front of him in the universal signal for 'stay back', not that it would do any good. Cops did what they wanted.

"I don't- I don't know who that is. I've never hearda Steve and I'm not- not-" His breathing was too fast for his phlegm-filled lungs, and he had to take half a minute to cough, heavy and hard and wracking his whole frame. He pressed back again and threw his hand up higher, just in case Same tried to come closer while he was unable to do anything.

"I'm not him." He managed to gasp, raspy and whispery. "I don't have a name. I ain't got a home. Just-just lemme get outa here."

He managed to make standing look a hell of a lot easier than it really was. The world tilted about fifty degrees, and as soon as he was out of Sam's earshot he was definitely planning on vomiting. His breathing was still too fast, and the lack of oxygen wasn't exactly helping his situation. He just needed to get out of here before the inescapable fear grabbed hold of him, because once it did he'd collapse and there'd be no convincing the cop he didn't need help. He still had the pocketknife. He didn't want to use it, because it wouldn't be any good as a threat and he'd have to actually go at the cop with it if he wanted to escape. And if it didn't work, he'd be a guy who'd assaulted a cop and he wouldn't be allowed any say in what they did to him.  
-

He seemed about as convinced that he was fine as he was about not being James, meaning of course that those were both very obviously untrue. The only problem was that he seemed to be much more insistent on being the wrong guy than he was on being fine. The words come out raspy, quick, and James himself has pressed every inch of himself back against the dumpster like maybe he could fuse himself into the metal if he tried hard enough. James Barnes has been on the street for two years and in that time he's turned himself into something more akin to a feral animal than a sick vet.

Bucky stands but just barely, breathing hard already just from that. He's scared, that much was easy, but of what Sam can't even begin to guess. He stood a little straighter, squaring his shoulders and pulling on a face that's a little more stern and professional. He can't let Bucky go, not when he's already bleeding and not now that they've finally found him. The ambulance siren wailed in the distance, still faint enough to be a few minutes out. James definitely doesn't look like he's got a lot of running in him but if Sam's learned anything from his time on the force it's that people lashed out if you backed them too far into a corner. His hand went down to his belt, just resting on the taser as a silent assurance that it was still there.

"Sir, we've had you marked as missing for the past two years, I'm not legally allowed to let you just walk away from me right now." He explained, a drop of caution spilling into his concern. What was James running from? Why hadn't he come home? Why was he lying about it now? If he'd been on the streets for two years then he had to know he could have come back at any time, there had to be some piece to this puzzle that Sam was just missing. James couldn't honestly have just forgotten everything, stuff like that didn't happen outside of the movies.

The ambulance was slowly drawing closer, it's siren echoing against the tall buildings. James wasn't about to leave without a fight.

"How about this, when the ambulance gets here we'll have an EMT check you out, if they give you a clean bill of health we'll skip the hospital altogether." He bargained, hand still on his taser. "After that we'll take you to the station, get your missing persons cleared, and you'll be free to go."

He knew there were about fifty different catches in there to keep Bucky in his care until he could get ahold of Steve. Bucky had to have at least mild hypothermia, he looked hungry and in shock. No way would he get a clean bill of health. Then at the station, he could insist on the next of kin being notified and affirming that Bucky was in his right mind- no way could anybody look Steve Rogers in the face and insist that they didn't know each other. It'd be like trying to tell the sun you'd never seen it before. That level of intensity was undeniable.  
-

"Two years?"

Bucky squeezed his eyes shut as the painful memory hit. Two years was when he'd lost his arm, and supposedly all his memories since that was the last thing he could remember. He could remember a few minutes or so, foggily, before the crash. He'd been walking. He was scared, he was doing something important. Or he needed to. He needed to stop wandering, to stop it and...do something else. For the life of him, he couldn't remember what.

His brain felt like the outside pieces were breaking apart and floating away, like ice caps during global warming. Why the fuck could he remember that, but not his own goddamn name? He needed to focus. He might- might actually be someone. Maybe it really had just been rotten luck that had kept him on the streets. The cop- Sam- had known him. He made it sound like someone was looking for him- Stan? No, that tasted bitter just thinking the word.

Steve.

Someone called Steve was looking for him. Maybe him. He felt his mental blocks weakening. What if it was real? If he really was...Bucky? Or James. What if he could go inside and get warm and maybe eat something someone else hadn't taken a bite out of first, and he'd have a name that meant something and skinny, cold hands that pushed his hair away from his forehead and told him in a gentle but strong voice that things were going to be okay.

His instincts were pessimistic, warning him that Steve wasn't real, he wasn't good enough to be anybody, this was just a way to drag him back to the hospital and strap him down again and laugh as his screams ripped through his throat until it bled. There was no way he'd get a clean bill of health, he couldn't breathe and he had a goddamn stab wound. He knew Sam's compromise was a lie. The only two possibilities presenting themselves to him were a tiny sliver of hope he'd never even bothered to consider before, and his absolute worst nightmares. All he needed was some kind of sign, to clue him in just a little bit.  
-

The time, that was what finally seemed to get through to him, or at the very least it was the closest they could get. Bucky seemed to be considering it, thinking about it, searching for some kind of truth to it. That had to be a good sign, right? Maybe all of this was real and maybe Bucky really didn't remember the him that had existed before the streets. They could figure it out later, they could have someone look him over and get him a hot meal and they were going to call Steve because holy shit it really was him. Bucky opened his eyes and Sam smiled, hand outstretching a little more for him. The only trouble was that Bucky wasn't looking at his eyes or his mouth or his hand.

James was looking at his taser.

What happened next felt like it hadn't taken more than a second, a blink and miss it kind of moment. Sam registered the feeling of a knife slicing through the fabric of his officer's jacket and the sudden bloom of pain when that knife reached skin. He registered Bucky's desperate lurch forward, the near blinding flash of headlights down the alley, and then the tug of the trigger against his fingers as he pulled it back.

The wet sound of James hitting the pavement slush seemed to break whatever spell they were under. Sam clicked off the taser and jumped forward to check if he was okay, just as he heard the EMT's rolling a gurney into the alleyway.


End file.
